The domestication process is accompanied with adaptation of the animals to captive conditions. It induces changes at anatomical, physiological and molecular levels thereby affecting a variety of biological functions. There is abundant literature on the domestication effects on growth and stress response in teleosts. On the one side, it has been shown that globally domestication reduces fish stress response, by rendering them less fearful. On the other side, the domestication seems to boost the growth performances.

Contrary to the above biological functions, the effects of domestication process on reproduction have received limited attention. Moreover, it appears that this field of research has conducted to conflicting results. Still, some differences between the fish families and fish species seem to exist. In this work, we investigated the domestication effect on reproductive ability of Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis L.), a promising candidate for the development of European aquaculture and whose response to domestication has not been questioned yet. The Eurasian perch is a freshwater fish species highly valuable in Europe. The perch market is local and the current production of market-size perch in Europe is thus unable to satisfy the demand, which is mainly centered in the Alpine region. Consequently to the decline of wild stocks due to intensive fisheries, intensive perch culture has been developed in the past two decades, and Eurasian perch has become a relevant species in European aquaculture.

Actually, there is no detailed study aiming at understanding the influence of domestication on both the mating performances and the reproductive mechanisms underlying these effects. Our hypothesis is that disruption in the level of the endocrine actors that control the reproductive cycle occurs during the domestication process. An investigation of some actors of the gonadotropic axis would provide indications about the effect of domestication on breeder’s reproductive physiology.

To address this question, two populations of F1 and domesticated females were submitted to a photothermal program allowing the control of gonadogenesis advancement. Gonado-somatic index, 17 ?-estradiol levels and oocyte diameter were significantly higher in domesticated population than in F1 one. In contrast, testosterone, 11-ketotestosterone, and vitellogenin levels were found to be higher in F1 females than in their domesticated counterparts. Lower reproductive performances were observed in the domesticated population by comparison with the F1 one. In conclusion, these results show that in this example of domestication process, a positive effect of domestication on vitellogenesis progress was pointed out while the effect on reproductive success is balanced as negatively affects the survival of progenitors and positively alters the level of malformations.